


Joined

by hollo



Category: South Park
Genre: M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-04
Updated: 2007-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-17 09:17:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollo/pseuds/hollo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An excerpt from The K-Squared 100 project I had posted on fanfiction.net. This is my absolute favorite of that series, and I think it deserves to stand alone.<br/>---</p>
<p>Joined, for eternity, in life and after... One way or another, they'll get there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Joined

I drummed my fingers against my knees, staring out the window as my mom drove me over to Cartman's house. The trees at the side of the road zoomed past, fresh spring leaves shivering in the light wind. The radio was set to one of my mom's favorite stations, and while usually I couldn't stand it, this time I found myself humming along to the song that started playing.

_Here, where they can't find us_

_I dare them to_

_call_

_Me out_

_I tell you_

_We met here on purpose_

_I bet they can't wait to_

_Wake_

_us up_

_It's all a little bit strange_

_I know_

_It's a little bit strange_ …

"Okay honey, here you go," My mom turned to me, smiling. I grinned back, my hand already on the handle.

"Thanks mom," I said, swinging the car door open, "I'll see you later."

"Bye honey, keep safe, okay?" She called after me. I turned back to give her another grin before heading on down the walkway towards the house. I could hear the car drive off, and found myself still humming to the tune of the song I'd left behind.

The door opened just as I stepped onto the doorstep. Cartman glared at me, looking annoyed.

"Fag, where's Jew-boy?" He asked, looking around, as if I'd hidden Kyle somewhere.

"Kenny and him had a project to work on, I think he spent the night there," I shrugged. Cartman grunted, disappeared back inside the house. I started to walk inside when Cartman reappeared, pushing me back outside as he pulled on his jacket.

"What are you doing?" I asked, watching as he pulled the door shut behind him.

"We got thirty minutes to get to the movie," Cartman said as way of explanation, heading on towards the street.

"You still think they're just going to let us in?" I asked, falling in step beside him. It wasn't that hard, considering that at 14 Cartman had reached the size of a baby beluga, and couldn't move fast to save his life.

"They have to," Cartman snapped, then stopped to look at me. "Where the hell are they?"

"How should I know?" I answered, sighing. "They're probably heading over from Kenny's house."

"Fucking poor boy," Cartman grumbled, heading off again.

"We can just meet them on the way, I guess," I sighed, realizing that I really didn't have a choice. Cartman was super intent on going to see whatever movie was playing right now. Probably something about conspiracy theories, or gassing masses of people, or something of the sort. I hadn't been really paying attention to what he was ranting about before, I just came along so I could get out of the house and hang out with my friends.

Cartman checked his watch, grumbling under his breath, as we walked, and kept checking every few seconds. Apparently, time was not slowing down as he wanted it to, and he found that fact highly unforgivable.

"Where the hell are they?" He growled finally, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to glare at me murderously.

"I told you, I don't know. Kyle said they'd meet us at your place." I reminded him, "They might be there, you know.""How'd they get there, douche? This is the quickest way to my house," Cartman motioned at the street in front of us.

"Maybe… somebody drove them," I supplied, although I knew that was highly improbable.

"Sure, probably Kenny's drunk-ass dad with the pickup that's up on blocks on their front lawn, right?" Cartman snorted, heading on down the street again, his pace picking up. "Twenty minutes, we got twenty minutes, if those bastards make me late to the greatest movie ever I'm going to kill them."

I rolled my eyes and followed him. Honestly, though I acted indifferent, I was starting to get a little worried myself. Kyle wasn't one to come late, he was always punctual, and he always showed up when he said he would. Kenny… was a different story, but Kyle shouldn't have had a problem dragging the blond over on time.

"What if they went to Stark's?" I asked, trying to think of where they could have gone.

"We could check…" Cartman said grudgingly, and suddenly I realized the he hadn't been checking his watch for a while now. Either he'd given up getting to the movie on time, or… he was actually…worried.

I shook my head, snorted. No way would Cartman be worried, he was most likely quiet because he was plotting our friend's demise. Yeah. That was the Cartman thing to do.

Still, we found ourselves heading towards Stark's Pond at a fast pace. I don't know why, but it felt as if something were pulling us there, inexplicably drawing us towards that place. I reached the dirt trail that led the way off of the main sidewalk before Cartman, rushed down it towards the low hill that stood between us and the pond. I must have been moving quickly; I heard Cartman's breaths come heavily behind me, but he was still keeping up.

The sun was glittering on the water as I topped the hill. I had to squint to keep the glare form blinding me, and focused on two forms laying on the pond's shore. Cartman came up beside me, leaning almost half over with his hands on his knees and breathing heavily.

"What are they, sleeping?" He asked, having recognized the two forms on the beach.

I shrugged in reply, heading on down the side of the hill, albeit at a much slower pace than before. My eyes focused on the two prone figures, and I thought that I should call out to them, call their names. Something kept me from doing that, something kept me walking slowly forward towards the beach.

The wind had the lake in motion; there were little waves lapping at the edges of the water. Cartman was right next to me as I walked, but his grumbles that had started up at the top of the hill grew quieter the closer we got, until we both walked in silence towards the lake.

It couldn't have been more than a minute or two, that walk, but it seemed to take forever. It seemed as if an insane amount of energy had to be spent to lift my foot, to put it back down, then to lift the other. Step, step, and still I felt pulled forward, compelled to move. I couldn't have stopped if I had wanted to.

We were about ten feet away when I heard Cartman make a noise. It didn't really register at that moment; strangely, nothing really registered at that moment. I heard Cartman make the noise, I felt him stop, but I made nothing of it, continued to walk on as if I hadn't heard him.

Nine feet away… eight… seven… I felt Cartman's hand grip the back of my jacket, pulling me to a stop. I felt it, but I wasn't paying attention to it. My eyes had fixed on the two figures of my best friends laying on the gravely sand at the edge of the pond.

Both Kyle and Kenny lay on their backs, their feet towards the water. Their eyes were closed, they both looked as if they were sleeping. They could have been sleeping, I thought, except I noticed that neither one of them moved. Their faces were pale, too pale. Kyle's left jacket arm was cut off at the elbow, as was Kenny's right one. Their arms were pressed together, inside against inside, and tied around and around with a long red string.

I frowned; a large stain marred the sandy gray of the shoreline, descended down to the edge of the water. The small waves were lapping at the soles of their shoes, tinged with pinkish foam where they met the stain.

I frowned, and I kept frowning. My mind wasn't putting two and two together. I saw it all, but it didn't register, it didn't even begin to register.

Cartman was pulling me back, pulling me away, and I tried to fight him, to stay, but he put his weight into it and dragged me away. I kept looking back as long as I could, but that didn't last long. We stumbled back up the hill, and nearly fell down the other side since my feet weren't working as well as they should have worked.

"Where are we going?" I said, balking at the bottom of the hill. Cartman gave me a wide-eyed look, eye's flickering from me to the street we'd come from. I didn't like the way his eyes looked, wild, and I continued, "They're… they're hurt! We have to help them!"The thoughts came to me suddenly; of course they were hurt! That's why they weren't moving, and that made sense. We should be back there, helping them, not running off somewhere.

I think I told most of that to Cartman; he gave me the strangest look I had ever been at the receiving end of, and maybe, no, definitely, it was made even stranger because it came from  _him_. An odd mixture: disbelief, pity, anguish, fear, and others. Too many feelings were in his eyes, too many to put to words, and then there was anger. Anger, and I thought for a moment he was going to hit me.

"We are, Stan," He said through gritted teeth. Grabbing hold of my arm this time, he dragged me towards the street. "We're going to find someone who can help."

"But…" I protested, but only faintly. His fingers dug into my arm painfully; the memory of what I had just seen was prodding me, poking me, shoving at me. I couldn't help but think I was missing something, something important. That I was looking at something and not seeing it.

What was it? What was I missing? What couldn't I figure out?

I tried going over everything in my head, but I couldn't. The pieces were scattered around, flying around me, there was a typhoon in my head and the wind was tossing the facts around, the rain making them melt and run. I couldn't think straight; it was a miracle, really, that Cartman managed to drag me to the street without me falling flat on my face.

Vaguely, I saw him wave desperately at passing cars. I wondered what he was doing; my mind just wasn't working correctly. He managed to flag down a car finally, and a woman came out, in her thirties, maybe, asking what was wrong. I saw him dart a slightly fearful look my way before leaning over and whispering something to the woman.

Immediately her face turned to a mask of shock. Her hands covered her mouth as a small, sharp gasp. She gave Cartman a wide-eyed look, her hands shaking around her mouth. Pulling them down, she dug through her purse, her hands seemingly grabbing everything except for what she was looking for.

When she spoke, she spoke quietly. I couldn't hear her, I was too far away, but I saw her lips move. I saw her lips form the syllables. I saw the word she spoke at the end, saw her mouth form the 'd' and the 'eh' and the 'd' again.

I saw Cartman, teeth gritted, expression grim, nod once.

My mind, a whirlwind before, came to a screeching halt.

"Dead…"

I didn't think I spoke aloud, but Cartman turned his head towards me sharply, shocked. He started to say something, but I couldn't hear him. My eyes turned back towards the hill we had just came over, my thoughts went back to what I'd seen of my friends, laying on the shore.

I was back there again, looking down at their serene faces, at the pallor of their skin. I could see the red string tying their bare forearms together, see the dark stain that soaked into the sand beneath. The stain, dark reddish-brown, running down to meet the pink-foam flecked water.

Dark red, like the sun when it set.

Dark red, like the blood that used to flow through the veins of my friends.

I must have moved, I must have, because I found myself running up the side of the hill. The woman's yells barely reached me, Cartman's curses were left behind me, I was cresting the hill and I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.

No way, there's no way. It wasn't true, it wasn't. It was some joke, or a bad dream. That's right, that's all it was. It wasn't true. It wasn't.

It wasn't, but I was getting close to them again, I could see them, clearly now, see the stain between them, see the red creeping into the fabric of their jeans where it touched, see it staining their arms and the fingers of their hands.

I needed to be closer, I  _needed_  to, but a few feet away I was picked up off my feet, half spun around and dragged away again. I fought back, felt my punches hit home on flabby flesh.

Cartman grunted, then grabbed me by one arm and threw me down on the ground. I started to get up but he sat down right next to me, nearly lay on top of me to keep me down. He was saying something, kept repeating something, but I didn't listen, I didn't want to listen.

"No, no, this isn't real," I said, twisting in his hold. "This isn't happening, Cartman, tell me this isn't happening…"

"Calm down Stan," He said, in a voice so controlled I wondered whether he was feeling anything at all at that moment. "Calm down."

"Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up…" I tried to reach out and hit him again, but I found I didn't have the strength.

Somewhere in the distance sirens were playing, they were getting louder, and I clenched my hands around my ears to try and drown out the sound, shoved my face into the ground until the only thing I could see was black, black everywhere around me.

* * *

Kyle's funeral took place a few days after the two were found. I can't remember exactly when, my mind was a blur. I was detached, numb. I didn't see anything I looked at, I couldn't taste anything I ate.

I watched the proceedings without emotion. I didn't understand Jewish funerals, and honestly, I didn't want to understand them. If I understood, that meant that everything had really happened. Kyle was really… dead. He wasn't coming back.

And yeah, for a long time, ever since I got up off that grass by Stark's Pond after the ambulance had rolled away, lights dark, I still believed, somewhere, deep inside, that this wasn't happening. That Kyle was just sick, that he was going to come home any day and we were going to go back to playing video games all night and watching the sun come up from the roof of my house.

I stood in the cemetery, staring down at the plain pine box in the hole in the ground, and I still didn't believe it. That wasn't Kyle down there, it was a box. A wooden box. And that was it.

"Stan…"

I found myself wavering at the edge of the hole, shocked, suddenly hearing his voice. He was calling me, I could hear him! I could hear him calling me…

"Stan, honey, you need to take a step back now…"

A hand closed around me arm, and I allowed myself to be pulled away, sinking lower into despair. It wasn't Kyle. Kyle wasn't calling me.

Kyle was dead.

The hollow thump of dirt hitting the pine coffin accented my thoughts.

Dead –  _thump –_ Dead –  _thump_  – DEAD

The wind suddenly rose around us, blowing harshly, suddenly, through the surrounding trees. Branches rustled loudly, and for a moment, I swore I could hear a voice, a moan, on the rising wind. The moment passed, I dismissed it as nothing more than my mind playing tricks.

I turned, prepared to leave, no longer wanting to stand there and watch them cover my best friend in dirt. Everyone was crying, or trying not to cry, or looking away somewhere to make it seem as if they weren't crying. Everyone except me; everyone except for the young boy standing off to one side.

My eyes met Ike's, and the wind's moans came back to me. There was a sadness in his eyes, a sadness that, strange as it sounded, seemed deeper than one caused only by the passing of a loved one. There was sadness, and there was, I saw, surprised, distress. Nervousness. Something was wrong.

I was in no state of mind to ask him, and, it seemed, he was in no state of mind to tell me. So I turned, and I left with my parents, unable to stand there and listen to the groaning wind and the thumps of earth against wood any longer.

"Stan? Can you… can you come over… for a few days…"

I winced at the sound of Ike's voice; he sounded desperate, helpless.

I wanted to say no. I wanted to say that no, I can't. I can't handle being in that house. I can't handle being so close to where Kyle used to be and not see him, not know he was there.

There was safety in my home. There was safety here, even if it wasn't that far away, because I could ignore the phones and turn on the TV and imagine that Kyle was off visiting relatives in New York or something.

But Ike sounded as if he felt even worse, and I tried to imagine, tried to imagine an eight year old, trapped in a house, where he'd no longer be able to talk to, or to see, his brother again.

And I couldn't, I couldn't imagine losing someone like that. Our pain was different, but, I realized, maybe it needed the same sort of comfort to heal.

"Sure, Ike," I answered, although my confidence wavered even as I spoke. "I'll come stay with you for a little bit…"

"Thanks Stan."

The relief that flooded through his voice made me feel all the worse for thinking about refusing. As I hung up the phone I wondered whether I would have actually done that, refused. Whether I could have said no to the boy. I thought about how it would be, to walk to that house and know that Kyle was going to be the one who opened the door, to sleep over and know that there would be no late night talks with my best friend about life and friends, and all the things that don't really matter but seem important at the time.

I was going to be spending the night, I realized suddenly. I'd agreed to stay for a few days. The thought hit me hard, I had to sit down and really breath for a moment.

But I couldn't back out now, Ike needed me.

And maybe just knowing that would help me make it through.

* * *

I walked over to Kyle's house finally, carrying a duffel bag with clothes and watching the ground. I didn't need to look where I was going, I knew this route better than any other. For years I'd walked this street, took this turn, crossed this intersection. Kyle's house wasn't far away, and I could get there quicker by cutting through a few yards, but I felt the need to take the long way around.

Truth be told, I was still in denial.

Not surprising, I'd already admitted it to myself before, but each time I did I woke the next morning to find myself disbelieving again. And here I was, walking to the place that would, once and for all, affirm the fact that my best friend was gone.

I sighed, and found the wind around me sighing back. A trick, maybe, my mind being locked in turmoil as it was, but it really did sound like a sigh. I could swear I heard the sound of a human voice, and found myself looking around.

I stood alone, in the middle of the sidewalk, halfway to Kyle's house. The wind picked up slightly, a few scattered leaves on the ground fluttered a bit. A sudden sense of being watched struck me; I could feel someone's eyes on me, but I couldn't see who. Shaking the unnerving sensation off, I began walking on. The wind seemed to follow me, I was hearing things, like whispers, like sighs, but I told myself it was just the wind. It had to be the wind, there was no other explanation.

The wind picked up suddenly, and I felt mentally assaulted, almost, as if something was projecting thousands of whispers, hushed voices, straight into my brain. Startled, scared, I stopped in my tracks, spun around to see if I really was alone, if maybe someone wasn't playing some cruel joke.

The whispers in my head died away slowly; I still stood alone on the sidewalk, surrounded by nothing but air, but it seemed that the air was exactly what was causing all this trouble.

Even as I watched, the wind seemed to flutter away, the leaves that had been shifting around moments before were settling down, leaves further along the sidewalk beginning to move again, as if the wind were a living entity, and wherever it set its foot down it disturbed anything that lay close by.

I watched for a moment before dismissing it as just a strange anomaly, nothing to be concerned about. Obviously, I was over stressed, and was seeing and hearing things that just weren't there.

Turning back around I headed onward, faster even if I didn't fully realize it, and reached Kyle's house in short time.

The doorbell was to the right of the door. It stared at me, a black button in gold casing, like an eye. I felt watched, under observation. Angry with the mocking eye, I shoved it in with my finger, felt a strange sort of happiness when I heard the ring inside.

As soon as the bell rung I heard a familiar sound: footsteps coming down the staircase that stood opposite the door. They were hurried, as if they weren't sure whether the person behind the door was going to wait until they got there. My breath caught, I stared at the door in paralyzed anticipation..My mind was transported back a few weeks; I found myself beginning to smile.

The footsteps hurried through the short hallway; my ears strained to catch the sound, every sound. My eyes were focused on the door, I was willing it to be opened.

The footsteps came to a stop before the door; I jerked slightly forward, as if the door were already open, then caught myself, waited patiently.

The door remained closed.

The smile on my face that had been beginning to grow, began to fade instead. My hopeful gaze turned to one of confusion; had I really heard what I thought I'd heard?

Apparently not, the doors remained closed. Sadly, I slumped as I stood there, realizing that, once again, my mind had played tricks on me. Kyle wasn't coming to open the door, no matter how hard I hoped for it.

Other steps were coming, however. These were slower, quieter, made by someone who was most likely smaller and not in as much of a hurry. The door opened slowly, and I was met by the grave, solemn dark eyed gaze of Ike.

The boy seemed to brighten slightly when he saw me, but there was still a shadow in his eyes, a certain nervous flutter when they moved. I tried to smile at him, but I can only guess that it failed. There was no way any smile of mine at that moment resembled anything other than a pained grimace.

"Hey Ike," I said, and tried to say more, but found myself unable to form any words. Ike nodded, as if in understanding, and let me pass him into the house. We stood there in silence for a long moment, Ike watching me, trying to look at least slightly happy, but not managing. And me, uncomfortable in a house that used to be as familiar to me as my own. I didn't recognize it any more, there was something missing. Something big.

"Where are your parents?" I asked, grasping at conversation to break the stifling quiet around us.

Ike looked away a moment, turned his eyes back towards me without focusing on my face.

"They're at the cemetery," Ike said, his voice shaking slightly. My mouth began to form an "oh", but he cut me off, shaking his head, "No, not like… not like they wanted to. They had to go because…"

"Because what?" I asked, unsure and not liking the look on the boy's face. Ike started walking towards the stairs, slowly, but it was apparent he didn't want me looking at him as he talked.

"Because there were problems… The cemetery director called… and he said that someone had…" Ike paused, reaching the bottom of the stairs. He put his hand on the banister, seemed to waver there, unsteady.

"Had what?" I moved towards him, and hearing my steps he shook himself, began to climb up the stairs. "Ike?"

"Someone had… vandalized his grave…" Ike's voice came out strained. "The… the director said it looked as if someone had tried… digging him up…"

I nearly fell on the first step. Staring up at Ike's back in disbelief, I held tight to the banister and attempted to speak, to say something.

Ike turned back to me with wide, scared eyes.

"Why would someone do that?" He asked, desperately almost, then shook his head. "No, I mean… but… no…"

"How… how did you find out?" I managed to get words out finally, "Did they tell you?"

Ike looked away, guiltily I thought, then turned and started up the stairs again.

"Sure," He answered vaguely, his fingers trailing along the banister. I followed him again, frowning.

"What are your parents going to do about it?" I asked, deciding that Ike definitely knew more than he was telling.

"They said something about a mausoleum…" I thought I could see him shudder, "It's not exactly very traditional, but they think that maybe it'll keep whoever it was from doing it again… Mausoleums have security cameras and stuff like that, you know…"

We reached the top of the stairs, and Ike led me over to the first bedroom on the right.

"Mom said you can stay in the guest room, Stan," He said, as if I hadn't known, but I thought that maybe just talking, just keeping the conversation going, was helping him in some way.

"Thanks, Ike," I grinned, wearily, and Ike returned a tired grin of his own.

"Do you want anything to eat? Or drink?" He asked, seemingly eager to be doing something, maybe to keep his mind of other things.

"Sure, anything's good, as long as its edible," I answered, tossing my bag down by the neatly made twin bed.

"We have plenty of food, all our relatives brought a whole bunch of stuff over," Ike said, "I'll go get some ready."

"Ike," I said suddenly, catching him before he dashed out the door. He turned back to me, a questioning look in his eyes. I looked at him for a long moment, really looked.

"How old are you?" I asked, and he frowned at me.

"Eight. I'll be nine in a few weeks," Ike answered. After a moment he sighed and rolled his eyes. "I know…"

"I just forget sometimes…" I chuckled, ruffling his hair. He grimaced, but suffered in silence.

"I'll go get some food ready," he said finally, heading out and on down the hallway. I watched him go, then turned to look around. The room I'd be staying in wasn't huge, but it wasn't a closet either. I'd seen it before, but I'd never really been inside it; I never had a reason to. Whenever I slept over me and Kyle would end up staying up all night, and if we did fall asleep, it was more often than not on his bedroom floor, still holding game controllers in death grips, the TV flashing "Game Over" until morning.

Kyle. I turned to look into the hallway. A little ways down, and across from where I stood, was Kyle's door. It was closed, and I stared at it for a long time, wondering. Thinking.

"It's locked."

I started, surprised to hear Ike's voice come out of nowhere like that. I looked at him, saw him staring at the door intently. After a moment he looked up at me.

"The food's ready." He said, and I nodded. Together we headed on down to the kitchen.

* * *

It was nine that night. I was standing outside Kyle's door. My hand had nearly reached the door handle, hovered just an inch away. My stomach felt like it had a life of its own, like it was some flighty beast, roiling around inside me. I swallowed, hard, forced my hand to move closer to the handle.

I remembered what Ike had earlier, that the door was locked. At first I had dismissed it, maybe he'd meant it was closed. The door couldn't be locked, not really. Well, it could, but the only way of locking it was from the inside. There were no keyholes, there was no way of either locking it or opening it from the outside.

Kyle had always been mighty proud of that fact, that he could lock his door and keep everyone he wanted out, out.

So, of course, I didn't believe Ike. I couldn't, because there really was no way that any parents would lock the door of their dead kid's bedroom in such a way that they'd have to, literally, dismantle the door in order to get back inside. Honestly, who would want to do that? I couldn't see either Mr. or Mrs. Broflovski going that far, that would indicate that they were really trying to forget that Kyle had ever even lived there. And that really was unthinkable.

Coming to the conclusion that there was no way the door could be locked, I found it easier to move my hand towards the handle.

For some reason, I stopped just before touching it. Glancing around, I felt uneasy, as if I was about to encroach on some hallowed ground, that I was doing something that wasn't really allowed.

Stupid, I'd been in Kyle's room dozens of times before. I could go in there one more time if I felt like it.

Forcing my hand onward, I gripped the brass knob, and turned.

The handle jolted to a halt in my grasp. I had been so sure it would turn that even though it stopped, my fingers kept moving, slid off unexpectedly. Frowning, I tried again, holding the knob tighter, but with no luck. The handle wouldn't budge; the door was locked.

My fingers gripped the handle as I stood there, staring down at the dull brass and thinking hard. I remembered coming up to the house, remembered looking, habitually, up at Kyle's window. Remembered seeing it closed, shades drawn.

The door had to be locked from the inside.

I couldn't get past that point, but there had to be a way. Some way.

Suddenly, I felt a slight tremor go through the handle, felt it move slightly in my grasp.

_click_

I stared at the handle in disbelief. Slowly, unbelieving, I tried to make my fingers move again, but it took a moment before I felt strength come back into them. Slowly, slowly, I turned the handle… and felt the click, the shift, in the mechanism inside.

The handle turned, and with a slight push, the door swung open. For a long moment I stood there, staring into Kyle's room, still disbelieving that the door had opened so suddenly. Still, I felt the pull to go inside the room, and I stepped through the doorway.

In that first moment I was flooded with the feeling of being welcome, of being somewhere that was familiar and safe and good. I felt, I even dared to think, accepted, wanted. Looking around, I felt somewhat comforted by familiar surroundings. I knew Kyle's bedroom as well as I knew my own; I'd spent years coming here to hang out, running over in the middle of the night when I didn't feel like sleeping.

Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something, a figure maybe, standing by the window. Jolted, I jerked around, but didn't see anything. The window was closed, the area in front of it empty.

Strangely, however, the shades were no longer drawn, but opened, with the light of the streetlamp outside illuminating the room.

Still, even with that light, and the light from the hallway behind me, the room was half-dark. I reached out towards the wall, flicked on the light switch and shed light into the darkness.

There were papers scattered everywhere, as if a harsh wind had blown through the room. In the darkness I hadn't seen them, but now they were everywhere. Papers, notebooks, books, thrown around carelessly.

A pang ran through my chest, I felt the rise of anxiousness rise in me, choking my throat, clenching my stomach. Why I reacted that way, I don't know, but I felt nervous, suddenly. I felt… trapped.

Trying to shake off the feeling, I started walking around the room slowly, picking up papers and books and attempting to put them into neat piles on the bed and desk. Some of the papers weren't papers at all, but photographs. A lot of them were landscapes, long shots of forests and the town and some amazing views of the late evening sky.

One was a shot of Stark's Pond, taken from the top of the hill that stood between it and the street. I could clearly see the place where we'd found them, laying on the shore of the lake. A sense of foreboding crept into me, although why, I didn't know. What had happened had happened, I doubted anything could happen now that would cause me to feel this way. Still, I put the photograph down hurriedly, shoved it out of my sight and tried to shove it out of my mind.

Slowly, methodically, I moved through the room, picking up what lay around and putting it away. The room eventually was clean, or as clean as I could make it. The photographs and papers and books were mostly piled up on the desk, although a stack or two was leaning precariously on the bed. Looking around, I noticed that one more photograph that I had missed. It lay on the windowsill, right next to the glass, and I walked over to pick it up.

I glanced down at it as I did. It was a shot of Kyle and Kenny, taken from an arm's length, from what I could guess. It was one of those shots where the people in it weren't ready, an impromptu picture that caught the moment right before, or maybe right after, they'd been posing. Their faces were still turned towards the camera, but their eyes were on each other. Kenny was grinning slyly, as if he were in on some secret the rest of the world didn't know about. Kyle's smile was content, relaxed. They were both happy, and it was in that moment that I realized that, in the past few months, I really hadn't seen either of them as happy as they were in the photograph.

Walking back to the bed, I sat down, still staring at the picture in my hand. There was something there, between them, in that picture. And maybe Kenny's grin said it all, maybe they both were in on a secret no one else knew about.

I turned the picture over, wondering when it was taken, wanting to check the processing date on the back to find out. There were words written on the back, scrawled in black pen, in a hand I recognized. Not Kyle's, his writing was always bunched together, small, written perfectly but impatiently, as if his hand couldn't keep up with his mind. This writing was more relaxed, written by someone who didn't seem to care if it was understood or not. Except that this time, for this handwriting, the words were written clearly, legibly. This time they needed to be understood.

_Don't ever forget how much I love you_

No punctuation at the end; no end to the statement? This wasn't a "remember me" sort of thing, but more of a dedication. An unfinished sentence that could be added to, that could go on forever.

And it emphasized the other thing I had been trying to put out of my mind.

It wasn't just Kyle who died on that beach, it was Kenny too. They went out together, a pair, tied at the arms by a red string. It hit me, not long after the shock wore off, why they had done that. I'd heard of different suicides, where lovers died joined together in death, but I'd never thought I'd see one. And there it was, Kyle and Kenny, tied together, dead.

I really thought, at that point, that Kenny was dead, truly dead. It'd been over a week, and he still wasn't back. Maybe he'd followed Kyle, wherever he'd went. Maybe they were together, somewhere.

Love. Did they really love each other? Was it really love that bound them tight, or was it just a crush, a powerful liking, any other emotion mistaken for love?

I mean, at fourteen, does anyone know about love? Did we? I'd gone out with a few girls, and there had been times I'd told them I loved them, but I'd never… I'd never go this far for any of them. I'd never give my life for them. Not for love. Not for the kind of love I knew, and accepted as reality.

I wondered, was their love different? Did their love go beyond just what we knew as real? Maybe they'd found a way past the simple feelings of puppy love, maybe they'd found the path that led to something deeper, truer. I didn't know what I wanted to believe, that they'd been stupid, or that they had actually, really been in love.

I found myself laying down on the bed, eyes still focused on the picture I held in my hands. There was something there, between them. Something deep, something real. Something I've been missing. And I wondered how stupid I had to have been, how stupid and how blind to have missed it. There had to have been signs, there had to be some indication that this was going on; did I shove it out of my mind, did I block myself from seeing it, from understanding it, like I did with their suicides? Did I force myself to look a different way, to ignore something that was probably right there in front of me all this time?

I thought back, thought of the times when Kyle said he couldn't hang out, when he said he'd be helping Kenny on a project, or on homework, and that there was a storm coming, or that they'd worked late, he'd be staying the night. I wondered just how many hints Kyle could have dropped, just how many times he tried to ease the information over to me. I knew Kyle, I knew he wouldn't just go off and do something and not try to tell me about it, and I couldn't understand how I could have missed his signs. I'm sure they were there, I'm sure I just looked the other way each time they came up. No one wants to think their best friend is gay, right? Especially if they're gay for another mutual friend…

* * *

When I woke it was dark. The colors in the room were muted, and someone must have turned the light off. The picture I had been holding was on the floor, near the window, as if it had been plucked out from between my fingers and tossed away. I stared at for a moment, as best I could while lying on my side on the bed, then slowly moved to get up.

Everything was silent. I strained to hear something, but couldn't detect even the slightest hint of sound. The blinds were drawn up, the window was clear, and I could see the branches of trees outside moving in the wind, but I couldn't hear them, not even when they touched the side of the house. I stood up shakily, glancing around warily. Was I still asleep? Was I dreaming? It seemed like it, with everything so dull, so formless. The desk, the chair, even the bed I'd just left, seemed smoky, hazy, as if they weren't solid objects.

I looked down at my hands, my feet, my body, half-expecting to be just as formless, just as smoky and unreal.

I was solid, but gray, as if all the colors had bled out of me. My blue shirt was an off-shade of gray, my navy pajama pants almost black. The room around me was shades of gray too, all pale or dark, the colors gone. When I moved I felt like I was walking through smoke, through a cloud, I could feel something touching me, but nothing was there.

I made it to the door, opened it, hoped to hear it creak, or something, but it swung silently, smoothly open. Stepping out of the room I pulled it closed behind me, looked up and down the hallway. Silence was absolute, and the entire hallway seemed to be lit with ambient light, a soft glow that seemed to come from everywhere at once. I stood there for some time, how long I can't exactly tell, but a sudden noise jerked me back into action.

_THUD_  – from down below, I could feel a shudder run through the house, a little shudder, but in the silence and the stillness it seemed much larger. I moved, slowly, to the top of the stairs –  _THUD_  – and found myself almost jumping when the sound repeated.

It sounded like something being thrown against the wall, or no, maybe a door. The stairs below me seemed to stretch for eternity; I took them one at a time, placing both feet on each step before moving on to the next. It was quiet and it was still, but my heart was racing in my chest, and I could barely draw breaths fast enough. My hand on the banister shook, and I felt a small bead of sweat trickle down from my forehead, along the edge of my face.

I was terrified, each step down drew me into a larger cloud of fear and oppression. I felt squeezed, trapped, confined, it was getting harder to breath, harder to draw the oxygen into my lungs; and my lungs, they burned, with each rattling breath I took they ached. I was making it down the stairs –  _THUD_  – and the sound was getting louder; I was getting closer.

At the bottom I had to stop, lean on the banister to steady myself. I drew breaths quickly, almost worthlessly, expelling the air as soon as I sucked it in. My heart was pounding in my ears, almost louder than –  _THUD_  – the sound in front of me. I was staring at the door, I could see it –  _THUD_  – shudder with each heart-stopping sound. Slowly, I unclenched my fingers from around the banister. They ached, didn't want to go back to their normal shape. My hands looked deformed, claws instead of fingers, but I didn't look at them.

I was surrounded by oppression, I felt trapped, unable to escape. I was walking, but I could barely move. Each step forward was torture, each step was almost impossible to make. I could barely lift my feet off the ground, had to shuffle forward, slowly, ever so slowly, getting closer to the door.

A hand. I could clearly see a hand laid flat on the door. It was a left hand. I focused on it, moved closer, saw it clearly, and yet… it was smoky. Defined, but see through, as if it were made of mist, not solid. As I got closer the lines from the hand continued, I could see a forearm appear, slowly, the mist moving out and on, the forearm and then the upper arm. I stopped, I had to stop, about six feet away from the door, and watched as the mist kept forming, kept becoming a body.

A red string was tied around that forearm. It was expressly vivid in the gray and dreary atmosphere of my surroundings, stood out almost glaringly against the off-white of the mist that formed hand and arm and now body. The left leg was forming, the right leg and arm just beginning to become defined. A head was appearing above the shoulders, still hazy, but I thought I knew it.

The hand lifted from the door, just a little, then descended onto it –  _THUD_  – and I really jumped that time, jerked hard by the sound that resounded through the hallway. As if called into being by the sound, a multitude of hushed whispers reached me, voices hissing and guttural sounds reaching from beyond the walls. Suddenly, it was as if my ears were unblocked, I could hear the wind outside, the roar as it raged, realized that the door was being attacked from both sides –  _THUD_  – that the thuds were coming from both inside and outside. A moan rose, fell, rose again, the sound of voices in my head echoing the despair in it. The pain of it struck me, I doubled over, folding my arms around my stomach, feeling the terror chased away by the pain of entrapment, of loneliness, of oppression. I felt sick, sick to the deepest parts of myself, it felt as if my very soul were being wrenched apart, torn into pieces, and I felt so alone, so very alone. I thought I'd die if I had to be alone much longer, if I had to suffer this loneliness of not body, but spirit, I was detached from everything I loved, from everything that meant anything to me. I was trapped, unable to reach it, I could see it in front of my hands but I couldn't touch it, I could grab but it wouldn't fall into my hands.

I fell on my knees, the harsh weight of the pain and the loneliness and the despair driving me to the ground, forcing me down. The figure in front of me was becoming clearer, I knew who it was, recognized the clothes, recognized the height, recognized the curly hair that covered that head. The hand raised again and – _THUD_  – and the wind roared outside, despairing, replied –  _THUD_  – and I felt tears coursing down my cheeks, I could feel the salt on my lips as I opened them, struggling for breath.

"Kyle…" I whispered, I had to whisper, I couldn't get enough breath in me to do anything more than whisper, but the figure, hand raised, stopped. Paused, and stopped. I heard the wind outside roar louder for a moment, and then, as if given some sort of signal, quiet, become a hushed collection of near-silent whispers.

The figure turned, slowly, and as it did I felt the despair, the loneliness, the oppression, felt it all spiced with anger and disbelief and a strong sense of having been betrayed. Betrayal and despair and loneliness and I was drowning in them, drowning. I couldn't feel the carpet beneath my knees, couldn't see the walls around me, all I saw was that figure, turning towards me, slowly, so slowly, and I was shaking, I was whimpering, I was failing under all that crushing weight.

He turned to me, and I struggled to keep my eyes open, to keep my vision from succumbing to the blackness that was staining the edges, to the deep darkness that was threatening my sight. He turned, his face towards me, and I looked into his eyes…

* * *

Ike was looking in my eyes. I blinked, surprised, shocked to see him in front of me.

The dream, I'm sure I must have made some sort of noise. He was probably just worried, just came to check on me. I shuddered, remembering with startling clarity the events of my dream, remembering the feelings, the weight. Shifting, readying myself to sit up on the bed, I noticed with a shock that Ike was at the same level as me, was actually kneeling next to me. Laying my hand flat, I felt the carpet beneath it, the hardness of wooden floorboards beneath that. Startled, I jerked upright, looked around to find myself in the hallway between the stairs and the front door. It was still dark, still night, but everything seemed clearly defined. My shirt and pants, when I looked at them, had regained their color, as had my hands.

Shaking, eyes wide, I looked at Ike. He stared at me with wide, dark eyes, looked both scared and sorrowful and desperate all at the same time. His eyes flickered, maybe without really meaning to, towards the door, and my eyes followed.

The door stood much as it had before, silent and dark. There were no thuds, there was no roar of the wind behind it.

But, and I saw this with amazing detail, there was something different. On the brass handle, wound around and around, hung a red string, its color a sharp contrast to the dark surroundings. It almost seemed to glow, hanging there, like a beacon.

I felt Ike's hands on me, shuddered, but didn't pull away as the boy pulled close, wrapping his arms around my waist and burying his face in my chest. I couldn't move, not even to put an arm on his shoulder, comfort him in any way; my eyes were focused on that bit of red, on that thin string that, I knew, would haunt me for a long, long time. I couldn't see anything else, I couldn't hear anything else. And yet, Ike's voice broke through the stupor I'd fallen into, his whisper reached my ears even though his words were muffled in my shirt, and it sent the terror in me spiking to peaks I hadn't known it could reach.

"He's trapped… he can't get out…"

* * *

The coffee cup in my hands shook; it was a good thing I'd gotten a cover for it. I hadn't slept in days, coffee was my only respite. Each time I fell asleep I dreamed the same dream, no matter where I was, although it was always stronger in the house… no, that wasn't right, it was  _real_  in the house, it was truth in the house. Outside, the dreams were only memories, and I'd wake with heart pounding, but inside, they were real. Inside, I'd wake to find myself twisted upon the hallway floor, pulse racing, voice caught in my throat, fingers clenching at the carpet beneath me. It'd been almost a week, and I don't know why I'd stayed there that long. Maybe because Ike was still terrified; maybe because, each morning, when I confronted Kyle's parents, they just gave me blank looks, as if they had no idea what I was talking about. But I knew they knew, I knew because when I looked at them from the corner of my eye after I told them, I saw them exchange frightened, knowing looks. And at night, I heard the click of the lock on their door.

And I couldn't take it any longer. The last three days I'd been chugging coffee all day and all night. I'd stayed up watching TV until the early morning, with Ike curled up next to me on the couch, sleeping fitfully, waking every now and then with a cry, only settling down when I comforted him, patting his head and telling him nothing was happening. The caffeine was getting to me, I could barely focus on anything. I knew I must look like a mess, I didn't even take the time to comb my hair anymore, and it was a wonder I even got into the shower.

That's why I was here; I couldn't take it any longer. I had to tell someone. This was real, this was happening, and something had to be done.

So I found myself at the resident coffee house, the strongest black coffee I could buy in the largest container they had held in my badly shaking hands, facing the one person I'd never truly thought of trusting anything important with.

Cartman didn't look much better than me. He didn't seem to be so focused on his coffee, but his eyes kept darting to the outside window, and he flinched each time someone opened the door and the wind started whispering. He had bags under his eyes, and there was a glint in them that he was already planning something. Or planning to plan something.

Which was great, because that's what I needed, a plan. A plan, and I was in no state to make one up. But Cartman, Cartman was always in the right state to think one up. I don't think even the world ending would be enough to make him stop plotting.

So I got him there, and, in low whispers, stuttering words, I told him. Told him what was happening. Told him what I saw when I closed my eyes, when I went to sleep. He didn't focus on me, his eyes kept flickering around, everywhere, as if he was scared to focus on anything for any length of time.

"It's t-true Cartman, it is, I-I'm not lying," I strained to get my words out clearly, to keep the caffeine from ruining them. He still wouldn't look at me, and I was desperate. I needed someone to believe me, I needed someone to help me. I wasn't crazy. "Honestly, hon-honestly, Cartman, y-you have to b-believe me, you ha-have to, I-It's happening, it r-really i-i-is-"

"I hear him," He cut me off suddenly, wide eyes focused on the window. I stopped, almost choking on my words, stared at him. He turned his gaze to me then, shakily, and repeated, "I hear him."

"W-who?" I couldn't keep the stutter out of my voice. My foot tapped uncontrollably against the floor; I thought I had an idea.

"I hear him, when the wind blows. When it gets louder, I can hear his voice. There's a lot of voices in the wind, but they're all his," Cartman's fingers tightened around the paper cup, I saw it begin to buckle slightly. "They're all his, and they're all talking to me. I keep hearing him when the wind comes up."

"Kenny." I whispered it, so quietly, but he jerked anyways. His eyes closed for a second, then he looked at me again.

"I know you're not lying," He said, swallowing tightly. His fingers shifted around the cup, his eyes began darting around again. "But why?"

I understood his question, and I'm sure I had the answer. Once Ike realized that I wanted to help, that there was something that needed to be fixed, that everything  _could_  be fixed, he had been more than happy to supply me the knowledge to do so.

"I t-talked to Ike…" I started, and Cartman turned back to me, seemed ready to snort, sneer, but I shook my head, continued, "H-he knows what he's t-talking about, Cartman, he was t-there when th-the police gave his parent's K-Kyle's stuff, you kn-know, the stuff he had o-on him..."

Cartman frowned for a moment, but then nodded, conceding that Ike might actually know something. Taking a large sip of coffee, I leaned over the table, speaking low, and trying to speak fast.

"Ike said t-that Kyle had a l-letter, and h-he thinks that K-Kenny might have h-had a let-letter too…" I continued, shifting the coffee cup in my hands. "He said that i-in the l-letter Kyle wrote that h-he and Kenny wan-wanted to be b-b-buried together, b-but his p-parents didn't like the idea…"

"…so gay…" Cartman muttered, but I could tell by the look in his eyes that it was more out of habit than actual malice.

"S-so they didn't w-want to do that, and t-they had Kyle buried t-traditionally," I said, "But a f-few days a-after the funeral, something h-happened at the cemetery…"

"Supposedly it looked like someone tried to dig the jew up," Cartman's use of that word should have sounded derogatory, nasty, but instead it was almost affectionate, like a well used nickname. He turned to me, eyes finally focused, listening to what I was saying.

"Yeah, s-so the parents decided t-to move him int-into a m-m-mausoleum," I gulped, choked down another sip of the coffee that was already cool, and hoped I wouldn't stutter as much. "And since K-Kenny is i-in a diff-different cemetery…"

"They're not together…" Cartman finished, still looking at me, but his focus was elsewhere. He was thinking, I realized, plotting. "And that's why they're bothering us."

"Y-yeah, I guess… they're t-trapped, c-can't move on…" I added, sitting back in my chair and waiting for the magic to happen. It had to happen. Cartman was an ass, but his mind was brilliant when it came to making plans, and he wasn't too bad when it came to acting on them. I could see the gears in his mind turning, and let him think on it in silence.

Kenny had been contacting him, it seemed. He'd been in the wind. I remembered the day, suddenly, the day when I'd gone over to Kyle's house to stay with Ike. I remembered how the wind had acted, how suddenly I had been attacked by voices, whispers. How the wind had receded, almost as if wounded, when I couldn't understand what was being said. But Cartman could, it seemed. Cartman could hear Kenny's voice, could make it out. He knew he was being talked to, knew who it was.

And, it seemed, he was just as terrified of it as I was.

"Meet me tonight, at the parking lot behind the warehouse on Bolley," Cartman said suddenly, pulling me out of my thoughts. I was about to ask why, but the look in his eyes stopped me. They were hard, focused. Determined. I decided that it was in my best interest not to, this time at least, question his plan. I'd meet him at the parking lot, and let him explain things to me as things progressed. There was, after all, less of a chance of me backing out of the plan if I didn't know what it was.

"Nine?" I asked finally, deciding that at least I can ask about the time. Cartman thought for a second.

"Make it ten, we need the dark." He said, his eyes shifting over to the window again. I nodded, turning back to my coffee.

Ten it was, then.

* * *

Ten at night, and I was sitting in the passenger side seat of a beat up old delivery van. Cartman was in the driver's seat, fiddling with the dashboard controls. He had the headlights off, everything in front of us was lit only by the ghostly light of the full moon.

A full moon, I found that funny. How lucky for us that it was a full moon. I turned in my seat to look into the back of the van. There were things back there, bags and flashlights, and what looked like a large drill. I started wondering what that was for, but then decided I'd rather not know. It was better that way; as desperate as I was, I'm sure that some part of me would rebel if I found out things wouldn't be happening… nicely. Or goodly. I wondered whether my mind was going from the lack of sleep. I could barely form sentences, I was using words in my head that didn't sound like actual words.

"I went to the mausoleum earlier." Cartman said, speaking normally. The wind outside was howling, but it sounded eager. "I visited Kahl's… room thing… I asked the lady there if the walls were soundproof. She gave me a weird look, but said they were all really thick, that they probably were."

I had a feeling that I knew what Cartman's plan was. It was very much like the plan that'd come into my head during the long nights, but I felt much better putting it all on Cartman. It was more like something he'd think up, anyways.

"Is that where we're going?" I asked, watching as Cartman turned the key in the ignition. The van started up loudly, but soon settled into a low hum, the engine idling.

"Yeah," Was his response. His foot pressed the gas pedal and the van moved forward, rolling out from behind the warehouse and onto the street. The road was dark; there weren't many streetlamps out here. It was empty; not a lot of people hung around this area after dark. Therefore, it was a perfect place for us to start.

"Where did you get the van?" I blurted out suddenly, and followed it up with "and when did you learn to drive?"Cartman turned to give me a slightly bemused look, as if he couldn't understand why, of all the things to ask, I decided to ask that.

"Me and Kenneh found the van a little while back," He explained after a moment. His eyes focused out onto the road, and I saw his hands clench around the steering wheel. "We… we used to take it out on joy rides around his house… the roads there were always empteh…"

I turned to look out the window myself; for a second there Cartman looked so incredibly sad that it made me sick. Not sick because he was sad, but sick because I'd never even considered the fact that he could be sad about this. It was all about me, I realized, in my mind, it was all about me losing my best friend, and I'd never thought about Cartman, and the fact that he and Kenny had always hung out together, and the fact that they were probably best friends too. That Cartman could be missing him as much as I missed Kyle.

What had I thought of Cartman? He'd always seemed so different from us, so… weird. Inhuman. Monstrous at times. Sadistic and nasty. He didn't seem possible of feeling anything other than perverse pleasure, but I guess I was wrong. He's human, after all, just like me. Just like all of us. I wondered if he and Kenny shared the same kind of bond that me and Kyle shared, whether they'd stayed up late at night talking about nothing, whether they felt connected in some deeper way, like brother's who'd found each other after having been lost for years.

I'd seen their relationship around us, it always seemed so hurtful, so full of put downs and nasty remarks, from both sides. Strange as it seems, I can't remember a time where they actually had a fight, and although I tried to remember, I couldn't even find a time where they argued. They had little arguments about different things, but I couldn't remember them ever getting so mad at each other that they'd refuse to talk to each other, or hang out together. They must have been close, I decided. They must have been close enough to fear losing each other over small stuff. Maybe they thought they'd be the only close friends they'd ever have.

"Did you know?" I asked quietly, almost ashamed to say the words. Cartman didn't look at me, and I tried not to look at him, but I could see him stiffen in his seat.

"I think he was afraid," Cartman replied finally, "I think… I think he was afraid of what I'd say."

I focused on my feet, not sure whether I should feel relieved that I wasn't alone in not knowing, or be saddened by the fact that both our respective best friends were scared to tell us the truth.

Cartman's harsh laugh broke into my thoughts; I turned to find him grinning in an almost maniacal way.

"And he was right, you know, Kenneh was so right. I would have chewed him out. He must have been crazeh or something. What the hell did was he thinking, going out with the Jew?" Cartman kept laughing for a long while, that harsh, horrible, painful laugh, but slowly it diminished into a choking sort of sob, until he could only manage to choke out the words, "Why didn't he trust me?"

I bit my lip, turned to the window to my right so I wouldn't have to look at him. My eyes burned; I knew the feeling. I knew the horrible emptiness that the realization brings, that comes to you the moment you find out that your best friend, the person you trusted more than anyone else in the world, couldn't trust you. Wouldn't tell you something because they didn't believe you'd accept it. It hurt, inside, hurt deep. I closed my eyes, rested my forehead against the cool glass of the window. We rode the rest of the way in silence. I didn't think I had the energy to bring anything up to Cartman; I didn't think I was stable enough to see just how much he'd been ruined by what had happened. I still didn't know just how ruined I was myself.

"We're here," Cartman said quietly. I looked, really looked, out the window, saw us standing on a road leading up to a gate. The fence to either side was high, and topped with barbed wire. The gate itself was fastened closed by a bar that lay across two supports. The bar was secured with a sturdy looking padlock. Very old fashioned, I thought, but then again it looked like an old cemetery. From where we were, however, I couldn't see any sign of a mausoleum. Truth be told, there were many trees, and they could have just been hiding the building.

"Wait here, I'll be back," Cartman grunted, twisting his large bulk around to reach something behind his seat. He came up with a hacksaw and what looked like giant wire cutters. Without another word he got out of the van, closing the door quietly behind him. I watched him put the hacksaw to the padlock, watched him pull it back and forth, the blade moving in what seemed a tiny amount every few strokes. It took him a few long minutes, but finally he put the hacksaw down. I saw him panting, saw his breath form clouds in the air in front of him. It was spring, but the night air was still cold.

The wire cutters attempted to finish the job the hacksaw started, and maybe they did, but no matter how hard Cartman tried, the padlock would come all the way off. He twisted the cutters, banged them against the padlock, but the bars of the gate were close together, and he couldn't do much of anything very well. I saw him curse, throw the wire cutters to the ground angrily. He glared at the gate, hard, and I wondered if he was deciding whether to ram the van into the gate or not. Leaning over, he picked up the hacksaw and wire cutters, and began to turn back to the van.

Suddenly, he jerked, glancing around warily. I sat up straighter, noticed that the branches of the trees nearest us were shivering; the wind was picking up. Cartman turned around, focused back on the padlock, and I turned my gaze to it as well, watching in stupefied fascination as it began to jerk, this way and that, tossed by furious gusts of wind. Its wild dance intensified; it flew against the gate once, and again, jumping and slamming over and over, until finally, with a twang of metal on metal that I more imagined than heard, it flew off, spinning over and over in the air to disappear into the darkness.

Cartman rushed forward, pushing the gate open gently to keep it from making any loud noises, then hurried back to the van. Climbing in, he tossed the saw and cutters into the back. His foot on the gas pedal, he inched the van forward, moving as slowly as he dared to keep from making too much noise. As soon as the van cleared, I saw the wind pick up again, watched in the sideview mirror as the gate, in controlled motion, swung slowly shut.

Cartman was breathing hard, but his eyes were focused on the road ahead, a road that was almost invisible to me. I could tell he was moving more by feel, by instinct, than by directions. It was a good thing he'd come here earlier, otherwise we'd be lost. But that wasn't coincidence, nothing Cartman did while putting a plan into motion was coincidence.

Unexpectedly, a building loomed out in front of us, rising above the road as if by magic. Cartman stopped the van as soon as the building appeared, eyed it critically.

"We have to go in from the back," He said quietly, whispering, "Come on."

Climbing out of the driver's seat, he made his way into the back of the van. I followed, albeit slowly, unsure of just what was expected of me. Cartman handed me a large and heavy bag, himself taking another bag, and the large drill I'd seen earlier. I eyed the drill uneasily, my stomach quivering slightly.

"Are we doing what I think we're doing?" I asked, swallowing heavily. Whatever effect my most recent cup of coffee had had was quickly wearing off.

"I'm not saying anything, otherwise your pusseh ass would be running away, and there's no way I'm doing this by mahself," Cartman responded, handing me a helmet with a flashlight fixed to it. I put it on, then followed him as he opened the van doors wide and lead the way out.

We traveled slowly, crouched low to the ground. I saw a light flash in a few of the windows as we passed, and tensed up before Cartman mouthed "night guard" to me. Finally, after crouching and running enough to nearly put cramps in my legs, we reached the back door. Cartman crept up to it, listening closely, then pulled out a small pack out of the bag he had hoisted around his shoulder. The pack unfolded to reveal a series of small metal rods, each one with a differently shaped tip. I stared, both in shock and awe, and wondered just where Cartman had gotten an entire set of lockpicks. This wasn't the time for asking questions, however, and I tried to keep watch while Cartman poked and prodded inside the lock, switching rods a few times. Finally, he was rewarded with a click. Grinning to himself, he carefully put the lockpicks away and pushed the door open.

Slowly we entered, being careful to step quietly. Cartman closed the door behind us, and for a moment all I could see was pure black. The terror came back, suddenly, I choked on it, and then the door was open again, and I could see. I turned to see Cartman staring out side, a strange look on his face. He looked at me, and I opened my mouth to ask him what he was doing, but he shook his head. Motioning for me to follow, he led the way down the hallway.

A few turns, and we were heading up a staircase. All I'd seen as we passed were store rooms, janitor rooms, nothing important, but up here were the… tombs. I couldn't choose a better word, but that was just what they were. The rooms where the people who died were entombed, the tombs. Cartman motioned that we were in the right hallway; I saw the pride in his eyes that he'd managed to remember everything correctly. There was a series of stained glass windows on one wall, letting in some of the moon's light; the opposite wall held the doors to the tombs. Cartman moved ahead of me, and I followed, when suddenly he stopped. I didn't notice, ended up ramming into his back with a grunt. He pushed back against me, and we stumbled backwards, nearly falling over each other.

"What?" I hissed, finally catching my balance. He frowned angrily and pointed ahead, at the ceiling. I looked where he pointed, trying to focus in the half-dark. Up, in the corner where the ceiling met the far end of the wall, was a black security camera. It was nearly invisible in the dark, but with my eyes having adjusted to the half-light, I could just barely make it out.

This was horrible, I realized. This would ruin everything. I heard Cartman curse under his breath, feel the helplessness roil off of him.

Something touched me. I started, bounced into Cartman, but he'd frozen. He'd felt it too. It was just a slight touch, but then I smelled it, the smell of fresh air. A soft wind began moving through the hallway, I could feel it winding between us, picking up speed slowly. Across from us the camera shuddered. It jerked slightly, bounced where it was fastened. I watched anxiously, my breath catching. The camera shifted slightly, just a half inch, then jerked back. Again, it moved, an inch almost, and stayed there. Another pause, I felt the wind around us pick up, move faster, and the camera moved again, spinning shakily, jerkily, on its metal arm. I don't know how much time passed, seconds, minutes, but the camera was facing away now, facing down the hallway adjacent to the one we wanted to enter.

Cartman gripped my shirt and dragged me forward before the wind even had time to settle. Three doors down, and he let go suddenly, so fast that I stumbled a little before catching myself. He looked at me, hard, pointed to the camera and to the hallways. I was supposed to keep watch again, that was fine. I nodded, and he got to work, pulled out the pack of lockpicks again. He picked out a few rods, and crouched down to get in a better position. I wondered if maybe he needed some light, but he didn't say anything, and I wasn't about to interrupt him while he had that determined a look on his face.

Nervously, I glanced up and down the hallway. The wind was still blowing slightly, just a light movement around my feet, but I thought it felt almost as anxious as I did. My hands felt sweaty, and I wiped them on my pants, grimacing. I looked at Cartman, willing him silently to work faster, then glanced up and down the hall again. The camera stayed as it was focused, but I was sure that the night guard would notice the problem at any moment, notice that it wasn't pointing where it was supposed to.

A near silent click, and Cartman grunted happily. After putting the lockpicks away delicately, he pushed the door open and walked in. I followed close behind, shutting the door behind me before taking a look around. It was dark inside, and I twisted the lamp on my helmet, lighting up our surroundings. The room felt sterile, clean. Too clean. The walls looked like they were granite, or marble. At the far end was a table with a few vases of flowers on it. ON each wall were three rectangular markings, but only two of them were accompanied by small, brass plaques. Cartman ignored the one on the right, and instead focused on the left hand plaque.

He motioned me to come closer, pointed at the bag I carried. I took it off and handed it to him, wondering why we were still being quiet, still refusing to talk, even though this room was supposed to be soundproof. Fear, maybe, irrational fear, that someone might hear us talking. All I knew was that I didn't want to make a sound, didn't want to say words because I didn't want to interrupt the silence around us.

Cartman took out the large drill he'd brought with him, unrolled the power cord that was warpped around it, and plugged it into a wall socket near the table. A wall socket in a mausoleum; I guessed that maybe they'd need it to vacuum, or something, but it still seemed strange.

The drill was set on the floor, and Cartman took a hold of my bag now, opened it and pulled out a small sledgehammer and a large masonry bit. At least, I thought that was what it was, I remember it from the home improvement shows I'd watched during my nights of self-induced insomnia. Cartman fitted the bit to the drill, then turned to give me a look. I wasn't able to define, not then, it was too strange. He gave me that look, then turned on the drill.

The harsh whine-roar of the drill motor broke through the silence of the room. I jerked, and even Cartman seemed taken aback by just how loud the tool could be. Still, he barely missed a beat, positioning the bit to one corner of the marked rectangle on the wall. It bit into the granite, the whine rising as the motor worked harder. Cartman struggled to keep the drill steady, keep it from spinning out of his hands. I stood there, shining the light onto the wall, and wondering if I could actually be of any better use that night.

It turned out I could be. Cartman managed to drill four holes, two in each of the right hand corners, and two more about six inches along the marked line from each of those. Then he stood up, handed me the drill, wiped the sweat off of his face, pushed me towards the wall. My turn, I guessed, and attempted as best I could to imitate what I'd seen him do. The bit grabbed at the granite, the granite grabbed back at the bit. It took all my strength to keep the drill steady, keep it from jumping in my hands. It still managed to shake wildly, and I thought my arms would go numb from the sensation. My going was slow, much slower than Cartman's, but I managed to make six more holes along the two lines before deciding to take a break. Wordlessly I passed the drill along to Cartman, and he continued the work. Gritting his teeth, he worked hard, and I didn't know if minutes or hours passed, but he finally managed to finish drilling the holes along the lines. With a sigh, he set the drill down, and reached into his bag.

Curious, I watched him pull out a piece of charcoal, the kind used in our drawing classes. He connected the holes with diagonal lines, putting a larger mark at each spot the lines crossed. Tossing down the charcoal, he picked up the drill again, and looked up over at me. I walked forward, seeing what the intention was, and took the drill from him. Thumbing the button that turned it on, I set the spinning bit to the first dark intersection. By now, though I had grown tired, I was used to the way the drill moved, felt more confident in my use of it. There weren't many holes to make, and I was honestly proud to finish them all by myself. Still, it took a lot of my energy, and probably a lot of time as well, but Cartman, surprisingly, didn't seem annoyed by that. As soon as I stopped the drill and stepped away from the wall, he walked up with the sledgehammer, swinging it around slightly. I backed well out of his way; I didn't need to end up with cracked knee caps, or ribs, or cracked anything.

Cartman swung hard, the sledgehammer met the wall with a resounding thud. I looked closely, but nothing, not even a hairline fracture. I frowned, but Cartman shook his head, swinging the sledgehammer back up into the air. I saw the muscles in his shoulders, the ones that were visible at least, bunch up. He swung hard again, and this time I thought I heard a distinct crack. Leaning close, I saw that, indeed, a small fracture ran from one of the corner holes to one of the holes of the diagonal intersection. I grinned over at Cartman, who looked pleasantly surprised. Grunting, he lifted the sledgehammer again, sent it thudding into the wall. A few more hits, and a chunk of granite split off, falling to the ground. It wasn't very big, a few inches wide, but it was something. It meant this was working.

Cartman worked for a while longer before finally handing the sledgehammer off. There were large chunks of wall missing, but it was still mostly solid. I hoped that I'd be able to finish it; I was sure time was running short. We needed to get this done and get out of here, before someone realized what was going on.

I focused on the upswing. Good form at that point leads to good form on the way down, and good form on the way down means more energy flows out from the arms and into the sledgehammer. The head of the hammer connected with the wall, sending chunks of granite flying out into the room. One hit me in the leg, but I ignored it, raised the sledgehammer again, focused intently on my mission. Again and again I launched the hammer at the wall, and more and more of the granite broke away, littering the floor around me.

It seemed ages passed, I was so intent on my work. I'd gotten into the rhythm, found it hard to get out of it, but the sudden sight of wood stopped me in my tracks.

I'd broken through.

Cartman was beside me in a flash. He had in his hands a large chisel and a hammer, and before I'd managed to set down the sledgehammer he was at work, chiseling away the remaining edges of granite that needed to be removed. I sat down at the other side of the room, continuing to shine the light of my helmet onto the wall, and tried to catch my breath. My arms ached. My back ached. My legs felt like jelly. My eyes burned from the dust, and each time I took a deeper breath I started coughing. I wondered if my asthma would act up, was surprised it hadn't already. And I'd forgotten my inhaler as well.

Cartman was working feverishly. I shared his haste, even though I couldn't move at the moment. We needed to move on, we needed to go. We needed to get this over with.

Finally, he tossed the chisel and hammer aside, looked back at me with a look of grim determination.

The time had come. I had guessed this is what we'd be doing. Just as well he hadn't told me before, once I'd gotten caught up in the work my good boy tendencies had shut down, as I'd counted on them doing. There was no turning back now.

I glanced down at the tools scattered around the floor. The only thing not tossed aside was the pack of lockpicks. Cartman had tucked those into his pocket earlier, but the rest of the things were strewn about. I looked at him, but he frowned, waved a hand at them. True, there were more important things right now.

I moved over next to him, reached inside the hole to grab a hold on the brass bar that was attached to the side of the… coffin. We pulled almost in unison, and it slid towards us slowly. I hadn't counted on it being so heavy, but I'd forgotten just how much weight wood had. Putting our muscles, our tired, aching, near-spent muscles, into it, we managed to slide the coffin out. It slid to the floor with a thump, and we stood over it, panting. Cartman looked at me, his eyes strange, and I wondered if he was scared. I wondered if any of this frightened him. It frightened me; had I not been so tired that I could have dropped there and then and slept for a week, I was sure I'd be out of the room, running to keep from performing any other travesties. But I was that tired, and only the thought that after this was all over I could sleep was keeping me going.

Cartman made his way to the door, opened it and looked around outside. Leaving it open, he walked back to the coffin and stood at the opposite side of me. I clenched and unclenched my fingers, hoping that they wouldn't fail me, and grasped the bar on the side. Cartman grabbed hold of the one on his side, and together we lifted.

Getting out through the door was a challenge, but only because we were tired and had forgotten that there were more ways to carry a coffin. I grimaced as we twisted it around; I swore I could hear Kyle's body thumping against the side, sliding around in it. I felt my stomach twist again, and swallowed hard, tried to focus on something else.

Down the stairs we went, moving slowly, and I felt the wind moving around us, picking up some speed and flitting ahead and behind. The hallways were more difficult to navigate with the coffin, but we managed it, and found the door we'd entered through still standing wide open. We hurried outside, not bothering to crouch and hide as we went. Speed was needed now, not safety. We needed to get to the van and get out.

And we did, sliding the coffin into the back and closing the doors behind it. I climbed into the passenger side seat, and Cartman climbed into the driver's seat. The motor had been idling all this time, and for a second, just a second, I wondered if the van ran on diesel, but that thought left my mind quickly. We were back, turning around. Cartman headed towards the gate we'd entered through slowly at first, then in increasing speed. The wind, I saw, was speeding along outside, visible only by the way the tree branches shuddered and swayed as it passed them. The gate appeared ahead of us suddenly, and I watched as it was blown open by the wind. It became a blur as we passed, I barely managed to focus and it was gone.

We were out on the open road now. Cartman turned on the headlights; the night had grown darker, deeper, while we were inside.

"What time is it?" I asked, my voice sounding strange to me. It was strained, shaky. I didn't feel either, just tired.

"Two," Cartman replied, dragging a hand across his eyes. He blinked, focusing out at the road in front of us.

"Two…" I couldn't believe it. Four hours, and no one had heard us. No one had noticed the camera was pointed the wrong way. Four hours. "And now?""Cemetary number two," Cartman took a turn, roared the vans engine to speed along the expanse of road.

"Is it far?" My eyes tried to focus on our surroundings, tried to grab hold of the trees that flew by, but failed. Utterly.

"Just a few minutes," Cartman muttered back, turning again. I fell silent, my mind going into standby. I couldn't think, couldn't move.

And then we were there.

There was a fence, but no gate. Or rather, there was a gate, but it was broken, hanging off of one hinge, and shoved aside. The van easily made its way into the cemetery, and from the fact that Cartman hadn't dimmed the headlights, I decided that there was no guards on duty here. The cemetery was pretty small, and Cartman didn't drive far before stopping the van and putting it into park. "All right, let's go," He climbed out of the van, and after a moment I managed to force my legs to get me out too. I wondered at his energy, wondered that he wasn't falling over tired. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Or maybe he'd gotten more sleep in the past nights than I had. Or maybe both. I walked around to the back of the van, where Cartman had opened the doors and was rummaging around.

He stood up finally and handed me a shovel. I blinked, looked down at it, puzzled. Saw that he had one of his own. And then I realized what we were about to do.

Wordlessly, Cartman led the way, and I followed, thankful that this time, at least, I wasn't the one leading the way. That I wasn't the one calling the shots and deciding what to do or not do. I wondered why I had ever wanted to be the person who decided what was going to happen; it was much easier and less of a hassle to let someone else decide those things.

Kenny's grave wasn't far from the path. It was marked with a generic looking headstone, with generic looking carvings on it. Name, date of birth. No date of death, but I guess that with Kenny, you could never be sure. He died once a week. Or, rather, he had died once a week. Now, as far as I knew, he was dead, and staying dead.

Cartman dug his shovel into the ground, and I followed suit. The shovel dug in, but it was tough. The ground still hadn't heated much after winter's frost, and it took me two tries to get a hole the size of a basketball dug out. Cartman, I saw wasn't having much more luck, was panting and grunting with the exertion. But there wasn't anything else to do; we had to dig.

Deeper, and deeper. Once more I lost track of time, once more I got lost in my task. The dirt began piling up around me, the shovel kept digging into the ground, deeper and deeper. I panted, my hands were sweating bad and I was having a hard time keeping a good grip on the shovel handle, but I kept at it, kept forcing the steel head of the shovel down, kicking it to dig in deep, ripping it up to pull the mound of dirt out of the hole I was now standing in.

We, that is. Cartman had managed to keep up with me, although he was falling a little behind. He panted harder than I did, his arms were wobbly as he pulled up the dirt. I thought about teling him to stop, to take a break, but the look on his face scared me. The pure determination, the sheer force of will, it made his face a mask, froze his features into a feral snarl. He was going to do this, he was going to dig Kenny out, he was going to go all the way.

I turned my eyes away from him, I couldn't watch him any longer. There was something raw there, something scary. Something I recognized. I dug the shovel in again, pulled it out. Again, and again, and more dirt piled up around us.

We weren't more than four feet deep when my shovel hit something. I frowned, thinking it might have been a rock, and stuck it in at a different spot. The shovel hit something again, and I looked up at Cartman. He stared at me for a moment, then shrugged, and began digging feverishly. We were close.

Slowly, the coffin was revealed, a dark coffin, almost as dark as the dirt that surrounded it. We had to dig deep at the sides, dig down to where the bars at the side were. Cartman climbed out of the hole once we'd gotten that deep. I waited, anxiously, breath coming fast, until he returned. He tossed down the end of a rope, and I tossed up my shovel. Taking the rope I tied the end to the bar on one side. Once that was done I turned around to see another rope tossed in from the other side. That one was attached to the other bar, and I climbed out of the hole.

Cartman stood on the opposite side, holding the rope tightly in his hands. I leaned down to pick up the rope lying on my side, pulled it taught. My eyes met Cartman's,; he nodded, and we both began to pull. The coffin was seated deep in the ground, the dirt was holding it fast. I could feel my muscles shivering, my arms were wobbling with the effort, but I only pulled harder. Grunting, I took a step back, then another. The pressure on the rope didn't lessen, but I kept pulling it, kept pulling even though I felt the rope fibers begin digging into my skin, biting deep.

And then something let go. I felt the rope move, towards me, heard a strange sound, deep and earthy, as the coffin was freed of the dirt surrounding it. Pulling hard, I stumbled backwards, trying to keep my footing on the rough ground. There were stones and hills of dirt everywhere, but I managed to keep from falling over somehow. The coffin was at the top then, and Cartman motioned for me to keep pulling. I strained against the rope, felt the coffin catch on the edge of the hole. Cartman rushed forward, pushing it from the other side, and it slid up and onto level ground.

I dropped the rope, opening my aching hands to stare at the lines that criss-crossed my palms. There was blood staining most of them, and they stung horribly. I wiped them on my pants, grimacing in pain, then stepped towards the coffin. Cartman was wiping his hands on his shirt, and I saw the dark streaks where his hands had been. I wasn't alone in my pain.

Once again, without a word, too tired to speak, or to think probably, we grabbed hold of the bars on opposite sides of the coffin, and made our way over to the van. Kenny's coffin slid in next to Kyle's, and, just as before, the shovels stayed behind. There was no time.

I climbed in painfully at the passenger's side, sat down and felt my legs go limp. My eyes were sliding shut, but I forced them open, turned to look at Cartman. He was hunched over the steering wheel, head on his arms, breathing hard.

"Where to now?" I asked, my voice hoarse. He stayed with his head down for a long moment, then sat back in his seat and put the van into gear.

"Stark's," He answered, his voice as ragged as mine. I didn't question it; somehow, it seemed right.

The wind outside picked up, the trees waved their branches around us as we headed out of the cemetery. Cartman wasn't driving fast now, but slowly, carefully. He kept blinking, narrowing his eyes, trying to keep his focus on the road. I didn't blame him, I could barely keep my own eyes open. To keep from falling asleep, I started counting trees. And then I started trying to just focus on the trees. And then, quite shockingly, I noticed the lightening of the sky out to the east. It was just a slight lightening, just a lighter blue-black instead of the darker blue-black in the west, but even as I watched it lightened more, because less dark. I glanced over at Cartman, wondering if he noticed, but he was so focused on the road that I didn't feel like interrupting him. It was probably better, I wouldn't want him to start going faster and risk taking a wrong turn, or taking a right turn but taking it too fast.

Even so, the trip to Stark's Pond wasn't that long. Cartman had taken a road I hadn't even known existed, one that didn't seem very well traveled. We drove up to the lake from the opposite side of the hill, far away from view of the street. Good, we'd need the cover, I thought. It wouldn't do for someone on the street to see us hauling coffins out of a delivery van.

Another part of Cartman's plan, no doubt. He knew exactly what to do. I was finding myself with more respect for him than at any other point in time.

We got out of the van just ten feet from the water's edge. I looked around, noticing that the sky in the east was less blue and more bluish-whitish-yellow. Dawn was coming, and the clouds on the horizon were colored yellow and pink on the underside.

I turned to Cartman, saw him head down to the water and pull a rowboat up onto the shore. He turned to me, looked at me for a long moment.

"We need to take them out there," he said, without pointing. There was no need, at this shore there was only one meaning for "out there".

"How?" I wondered; two coffins wouldn't fit on the rowboat, especially with the two of us on board. Even with one it would be a tight fit.

"We need to put them in one coffin," Cartman said, and with such a normal tone that I almost found myself agreeing with him.

"Yeah, that's- what? Wait, what?" I stopped, stared at him in disbelief. "What… one coffin? Are you serious?""Yeah, Stan, I'm seriousleh," Cartman headed towards the back of the van without waiting to see if I followed. I did, of course, but only to stare at him some more.

"You want us to put them in one coffin? Cartman, they've been dead for weeks! They're probably all… decomposed… or something," I was getting chills just talking about it, and I hadn't even started thinking about my words. My stomach was turning somersaults, and I wasn't sure if I could keep it calm for long.

"We don't have time to haul these things out there one by one," Cartman grunted, pulling at Kenny's coffin. It slid out, almost too easily, and thudded to the ground. "And besides, they said they wanted to be together."

"Yeah, but…" I balked, the idea was just too… wrong. Too wrong, it felt weird. It felt sickening. I wasn't sure I could stand for much longer.

"Stan, we made it this far," Cartman turned to me, held my gaze. He looked tired, very tired, but he also looked firm, resolute. He wasn't going to back out of this now. I looked away, looked at the lake, thought of the street beyond it, thought of how people were probably starting to realize what had happened, if they hadn't already. We were running out of time, and Cartman was right, we had made it this far already. I turned back to him, face grim, and nodded.

Together we pulled Kyle's coffin out of the van. For a moment we stood there, looking down at them.

"Which one do you think is heavier?" I asked, and Cartman looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Kenneh's, its oak." He said. I nodded, it sounded all right. And true. It probably was true.

I just wanted to get this part over with.

"Try Kyle's coffin, see if it opens," Cartman commanded, heading towards the back of the van. I grimaced, looking down at the pine box, then at Cartman's back, but no help was coming. With a deep breath, I crouched down and pulled at the top. My fingers were well hooked around the edge, but it wouldn't budge.

"Try this," Cartman said, leaning over to hand me a crowbar. He had another in hand, and as soon as I took the one offered he turned away to work on Kenny's coffin.

I looked at the crowbar in my hand, then down at the coffin at my feet. It had to be done, I guessed. It had to, and, looking up at the rapidly lightening sky, I realized it had to be done soon.

Shoving the forked end of the crowbar under the edge of the lid, I pushed down with all my weight. For a long moment there was silence, and then  _crack_  the wood separated. Pulling out the crowbar, I reinserted it farther along, repeated the process. After a few more tries the top of the coffin was ready to open.

I lay the crowbar down beside me, and crouched down next to the coffin. Taking a deep breath, ready to be assaulted by foul air, the smell of rotting flesh, I gripped the edges of the lid and pulled it open.

There was a smell in the air, but it was musty, wet and dusty, but not rotting. No foul odors met me, no strange smells wafted up. I stared down at Kyle, stared at his pale face, his curly hair. He looked as he had the day he was buried, like he had the day we'd found him on the shore of the lake. He looked… perfect, not like a person who'd been buried for two weeks. I was entranced; there was no way this was possible, but I saw it. Right before me.

I turned to face Cartman, saw him standing over Kenny's coffin in much the same stupefied manner as I had stood over Kyle's. Walking over I saw why; Kenny, just as Kyle, wasn't touched by decay, or by anything. He was whole and undeniably just the same as he was when we found him on the beach.

And they were both very, very dead.

It seemed like a strange revelation at the moment, but it came. They were dead. And I was glad, I was very glad, that I was exhausted, because I couldn't react the way I would have had I been in a right state of mind. I was too tired to care, at that moment, too tired to really care that they were dead. This was all a game. One more goal to accomplish and it's over, won, and done with.

"Into Kenny's coffin, then," I said quietly. Cartman nodded.

"I"ll… I'll move him over… a little…" He said, but didn't move at first. He stared down at Kenny, then turned, looking at Kyle. Staring at him. "They're dead."

"Yeah," I said, looking at him curiously.

"Yeah… all right…" Cartman moved slowly, painfully I realized, to crouch at the side of Kenny's coffin. Gingerly, hesitantly, he reached out, rolled Kenny over a little and shoved against one wall of the coffin. I watched him do all that, and suddenly realized my part in this. My eyes went to Kyle, my mind went to the fact that I'd have to somehow get him into Kenny's coffin. Maybe carry him, even, as it seemed the easiest.

The somersaults my stomach performed threatened to send it up my throat.

"You're not throwing up, Stan!" Cartman growled at me; he'd seen the look on my face, recognized it for what it was. "You're not, just get Kahl over here and let's get this over with."

I nodded, swallowing hard, and shuffled over to Kyle's coffin. Crouching down, I reached out, slid my arms under his back. He was cold, very cold, my arms almost burned with the cold that seeped off of his body. I grimaced, held back a whimper, and lifted him up out of the coffin. He was lighter than I remembered, and longer. I didn't remember Kyle being this tall, but I guess I didn't really pay that much attention to it. Strange.

I made it to Kenny's coffin, walked around to the other side so that I could put Kyle in the right way. It was hard, holding him, hard walking with him in my arms. He didn't weigh a lot, but it wasn't physical weight that made all the motions hard.

I crouched down, lay Kyle as gently as I could next to Kenny. They overlapped a little, but miraculously still managed to fit into the coffin. Cartman let go of Kenny, reached out to shut the coffin lid, probably unable to look at them much longer, but I stopped him.

Kenny's right arm was bare; he was buried in what he'd been wearing, no one had taken the time to dress him in anything different. He was supposed to come back to life soon, after all. It wasn't supposed to be a big deal, his funeral.

Around Kenny's bare right arm was tied a length of red string. Hands shaking, I untied it, unraveled it. I could see the long, red line down Kenny's arm, see just how deep in it went. It was darker red on the inside, and in the very deepest part I could see glints of white, of bone. My stomach tried invading my throat again, but I fought it off, reached out and grabbed hold of Kyle's left arm. The line on his arm was hard to see, it had been stitched, colored over, made nearly invisible. I knew it was there. I took their arms and positioned them as close together as I could, almost perfectly aligning the cut lines. Then I took the red string, and wound it around their arms, bound them, joined them together again.

As soon as I pulled away Cartman closed the lid. His hands were shaking, I could see them shake as he reached for a hammer lying in the grass near his knees. He picked it up, pounded in the nails that had come up when he'd pulled open the coffin's lid.

Finished, he dropped the hammer to the ground and looked at me. I nodded; I knew the routine by now. We grabbed the bars on the sides of the coffin, heaved it up. I could barely hold my end, barely hold the coffin and keep on my feet at the same time. I was so tired, aching all over, but I had to do this. This was the last step, this was the final part. After this everything would be all right.

We'd just managed to get the coffin into the rowboat when the sound of sirens reached us. I froze, staring around, wide eyed. Cartman jerked, looked towards the street. We stayed still, for maybe seconds only, but it seemed like hours. The sky was growing a light blue, a bright line of whitish-yellow on the eastern horizon.

"Come on," Cartman and I moved to action, shoved the rowboat off of the shore desperately. We pushed it out as far as we could, and still be able to climb inside. My pants were soaked through by the time I sat in the boat, and Cartman wasn't better off, but each of us grabbed one oar and started paddling for all we were worth.

Stark's Pond, in most places, wasn't very deep. The deepest of the so-called "safe" areas was around 15 feet deep, no more, but right smack in the center of the lake the ground dropped, and drastically. It was this part of the lake that never froze through completely during the winter, this part of the lake where the fisherman pulled out all their gigantic catfish and bass. It was this part of the lake we were rowing for, and I'd known it as soon as I'd seen the boat.

The sirens were getting closer, but not quickly. A good thing, that. We could get out to where we wanted to be, get the coffin into the water before anyone knew anything, before anyone could do anything to try and get it out.

The oars dug deep into the water. Cartman grunted with each pull, I panted heavily, felt the air drag against the back of my throat like sandpaper. I wondered if I'd be able to talk after this, if I'd be hoarse for days.

Cartman stopped rowing, tapped me on the shoulder. We were there, at the center. It was time.

I don't know how we managed it; the laws of physics should have been against us, gravity should have been working to pull us in as well, but somehow, someway, it didn't. Cartman and I lifted the coffin, with all its heavy, dead weight. We slid it off the side of the rowboat, and into the water. For a moment it hung there, floated, just at the top, and I worried that we'd have to poke at it with our oars to get it down. Then bubbles started floating up from its bottom, and slowly, so slowly, it began to sink.

I sat next to Cartman, watched it go. Watched it sink, little by little, bubble by bubble. And, for the first time in weeks, I felt calm. I felt peace. I felt the terrible burden lift off of my shoulders. I could have cried; I did cry, I realized, I was crying, I could taste the tears on my lips. The coffin was gone, vanished into the deep, dark depths. I slid to the bottom of the rowboat, folded my arms on one of the seats and lay my head upon them. I was tired, so tired, bone weary and ready to fade away. I felt so free. Not even the sound of the sirens, louder, much louder now, could change that. Behind me I heard Cartman laugh, explosive and freeing laughter.

Kyle and Kenny had their wish; they were joined, now, together, for all eternity.


End file.
